The Nation Newspaper

Category: Vincent Akanmode

  • Time to save this risky Bob from himself

    Idris Okuneye, the indolent male loafer who by some magical contraptions turned himself into a woman, is finally getting the attention he has craved for years, but certainly not in the manner he desired. Youths numbering more than 500 marched through the streets of Abuja on Wednesday, protesting the antics of the 27-year-old and describing his actions as ungodly.

    Until he plotted his way into national consciousness a couple of years ago, the Ebute-Meta, Lagos born dude was a haggard-looking, dark complexioned man with a face that would scare a child and cheeks only half as attractive as those of a horse. Today, he has transformed his near charcoal dark skin into a complexion that is almost snow white, thanks to a combination of bleaching creams. He walks about in feminine clothes and jerry-curled hair all in a bid to cut the image of a beautiful woman!

    In May this year, she adopted ‘she’ as his pronoun and claimed to have a male lover in clear contravention of the Nigerian law that prohibits same sex relationships; an offence punishable with 14 years in a penitentiary. At the slightest opportunity, he invades the social media, the market place of the youth, to flaunt the millions of naira he claims to have grabbed from wasteful politicians and other disoriented opportunists who think nothing of throwing our common patrimony around like rain water. Then in a plain admission of the clear and present danger he constitutes not just to the youth but the entire society, he felicitously adopted Bobrisky as his new name.

    Read Also: Inside the ‘risky’ life of Bobrisky

    In a society where inanities are easily elevated into virtues, Bobrisky is already building a huge fan base on the social media and is even being invited by certain event planners to deliver speeches at social gatherings. For years, the government ignored his antics, watching with insouciant mien as the iconoclast flaunted the millions he claimed were flowing in from deeds that add nothing to the national purse.

    Encouraged by government’s aloofness, he took his escapades a notch higher recently with a gay party he reportedly organised at a venue on Lagos Island to mark his birthday. But that turned out his albatross as security agents reportedly stormed the venue before the party could begin and arrested some gay youths who were already there in solidarity with their mentor. It turned out, however, that the birthday ‘girl’ herself had to go underground to avoid arrest. Since then, he has lamented to whoever cares to listen that a whopping sum of N12 million was invested in the aborted jump.

    The Director-General of the National Council for Arts and Culture, Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, also appeared to have drawn the battle line with his declaration of Bobrisky as a national disgrace. In a recent media interview with a national newspaper, Runsewe said: “Bobrisky is a national disgrace. He started by selling and using bleaching creams. Now he has grown boobs, bums and hips. If a Bobrisky is doing well with his immoral lifestyle, how do you convince Nigerian youths to do the right thing?

    “Bobrisky has the right, but not within the Nigerian environment. There are others like him, but they live outside the country. If we don’t address Bobrisky as early as possible, he will form a team that will spread like wildfire. This will result in a lot of suicide cases, because the typical Nigerian parent would not want to see their child become a Bobrisky.”

    Happily, the youth appear to have bought into the campaign to rein in the cross-dresser if the protests carried out by some youths in Abuja during the week are anything to go by. Numbering more than 500, the youths on Wednesday took to the streets of the nation’s capital city to protest what they called Bobrisky’s “moral decadence”. The protesters, under the aegis of National Youths Council of Nigeria (NYCN), did not only disown him, they also declared their support for the National Centre for Arts and Culture, the National Council of Women Society, the Christian Association of Nigeria and other bodies that have taken a stand against him and his activities.

    Describing the activities of Bobrisky as “ungodly, unhealthy and disgusting,” the Vice President of NYCN (North Central Zone), Mukhtar Jebba, said that what Bobrisky and his cronies were promoting was completely against the moral, cultural and spiritual values of Nigeria.

    He said: “Consequently, the NYCN today, September 18, 2019 declares Bobrisky as a persona non grata, as he is a man and not a woman. For national interest, we call on the ever-conscious, ever-ready, combatant Nigerian youths and comrades of like minds to, without fear or favour, kick out Bobrisky and his likes wherever they come across them. Nigeria is not a place for LGBT and we shall fight this to the end.”

    Bob Marley, the Jamaican reggae music sensation who died in 1981, is till this day perceived globally as one of the best things to have happened to the world. It is therefore one of the ironies of life that a Bob who died more than 38 years ago is still celebrated as a hero while another Bob who is very much with us is perceived as a gangrene that must be checked before it destroys the entire fabric of the Nigerian and African societies. I am not a medical doctor and would not pretend to be capable of identifying a syringe without being guided. Yet I know for a fact that the processes by which Idris Okunneye transmuted from a man into a woman are all at a great disservice to his own health. The ear2lier he is made to retrace his steps, the better for him and the society. His right to a lewd and licentious lifestyle must now necessarily end where our right to a decent society begins.

  • At home with Dino’s kinsmen on New Year’s Eve

    On the orders of the presiding cleric at St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Ayetoro-Gbede, Kogi State, I found myself performing a task I had not prepared for on the eve of the New Year. I joined hundreds of other worshippers who converged on the church for what is now popularly known in Christian parlance as crossover service, to pray for Dino Melaye, the embattled senator from Kogi West.

    Concerned that the Abuja home of the senator had been under surveillance for days over the allegation that he attempted the murder of a policeman, Venerable Sam Oyewusi told the congregation to spare a thought for him by praying for his safety at the hands of law enforcement agents. The vocal and fluent cleric had started by saying, “Omo eni kii buru titi ka le f’ekun paje (no matter how bad your son is, you would not push him to the leopard). If his travails are a result of sheer persecution, let us pray that the Lord will deliver him from the authorities. And if they are the consequences of his own misdeeds, let us pray that God in His infinite mercy would forgive and deliver him.”

    Surprisingly, the response from the congregation was far less than enthusiastic and totally devoid of any element of alacrity, prompting the writer to ask a few members after the church service their feelings concerning the travails of the embattled lawmaker. It turned out that some of the people had no idea of what Melaye’s problem was with the police. “I heard that he is fighting with Buhari and (Governor Yahaya) Bello. They should find a way of settling their quarrel,” one of them said. Another one, who said she did not know that the senator had any problem with the police, said she only noticed that she had not sighted his convoy in the village as was usually the case in festive periods. “Dino (Melaye) is the least of my problems now,” quipped yet another respondent. “How does his problem concern me?”

    Needless to say that I was gravely disappointed at the Melaye’s kinsmen for their responses. In spite of all that he has done within and outside the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly to put his constituency on national and world stages, it would seem that the forces that instigated the recent attempt to recall him from the National Assembly are still at work. For instance, it was a surprise to me that the people in his constituency did not deem it worthwhile to postpone the New Year celebrations as a mark of respect for a man without whom the constituency would be a far cry from the paradise his tenures as a rep and a senator have turned it into. They are not even thinking of contributing money for the senator to host the emergency guests at his Abuja mansion!

    It all boils down to the fact that the rambunctious senator is not having the best of times at the moment. A few weeks after he was beaten by the immediate past Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, to The Nation newspaper’s coveted prize of Entertainer of the Year, he is having a raw deal with policemen who insist that they will not vacate his Abuja mansion without dragging him by his trousers to face the law in Kogi State. Recall that Senator Melaye recently set the social media buzzing with his chartbuster song, Ajekun Iya, a subtle threat to Omoyele Sowore, the publisher of online newspaper, Saharareporters, with whom he was engaged in a face-off over a story published by the news medium, questioning the veracity of Melaye’s claim that he is a graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU).

    The said song was the icing on the cake of his other remarkable exploits, including the introduction of martial art into legislative business. The Kogi senator had come into the national limelight in 2010 by instigating a brawl in the hallowed chambers of the House of Representatives, which left many lawmakers, including himself, with torn suits, shirts, trousers, skirts and bras. Thereafter, he verbally attacked a hapless female senator, Oluremi Tinubu, in hallowed chambers of the Senate, threatening her with unprintable words. That was before his epic show with policemen who last year attempted to drag him from Abuja to Lokoja to answer to charges of gunrunning and illegal possession of firearms. In an incident that would leave Sylvester Stallone forever green with envy, Melaye reportedly jumped off a moving police vehicle and vanished into the bush where, by his own avowal, he perched on a tree like a bird for 11 odd hours!

    A man with all the aforementioned accomplishments certainly needs better treatment than he is getting from the police and his constituents. Who will save Dino?

  • Our lawmakers have done it again!

    Since President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2019 budget in a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday, tongues have been wagging over the conduct of the members of the two chambers of the National Assembly who booed and jeered the President at the occasion. Since the unfortunate incident, concerned Nigerians have exhausted the adjectives available in dictionaries condemning the conduct of the errant lawmakers. Some say it was indecent and unethical on the part of the lawmakers to subject their guest, particularly one of the calibre of the President, to the premeditated embarrassment. Others say the orchestrated act was a descent to the nadir of infamy. Personally, I am not disappointed.

    Going by their antecedents as a bunch of public officials without the slightest regard for ethics or etiquette even in less desperate times, I had feared that they would throw chairs and exchange blows while the President was delivering his speech. Hence, there is every reason to be grateful that Wednesday’s show of shame was limited to boo and jeer. A gathering that had Senator Dino Melaye and other talented pugilists who could have fared better as boxers and wrestlers cannot be said to have overstepped their bounds when all they did was boo the President. Nigerians who have followed their scandalous records will agree that the act they put up on Wednesday was the most decent they could muster.

    Nigerians could not have forgotten so soon the antics of Senator Melaye and his gang of wrestlers during his time in the House of Representatives. He came into national consciousness as a member of the House of Representatives on June 22, 2010 by sparking a free for all in the House after snatching a paper another member of the House, Hon. Chile Ogbu, was reading from while moving a motion that members who had become a bone in the neck of the House should be suspended. His action culminated in a commotion with some members beaten to stupor while the Sergeant-at-Arm battled to protect the mace and the Speaker. Melaye himself was bundled out of the chamber alongside other cantankerous members in the course of which his dress was torn into shreds.

    Melaye and his co-travellers in the National Assembly have since built on their records of violence within and outside the hallowed chambers, provoking unrest and throwing chairs at the slightest provocation. Lately, he has taken it a step further by engaging the police in a running battle with full support from the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki and other senators of his ilk who, unfortunately, were part of the crowd that received President Buhari on Wednesday. My fear that all would not be well at the budget presentation ceremony had been hinged on the fact that the violent disposition of the querulous senators and representatives was already compounded by the fact that many of them had lost their parties’ tickets for the 2019 elections. Others who are bent on frustrating the war against corruption are also frustrated by the seemingly growing popularity of President Buhari as the elections draw closer. In the circumstance, it was difficult to expect a receptive National Assembly.

    Alarmed at the level the bilious lawmakers had taken their antics, President Buhari reminded them that the world was watching. But he needed not to. Well-meaning Nigerians are intelligent enough to see through the antics of the booing senators and Reps. They know that the nation’s enemies were at work on Wednesday; that it was a clear instance of corruption fighting back. The President should, in fact, be worried if the crowd he met with on Wednesday was friendly, for it would mean that he was on the same page with the looters of our treasury and that would rubbish his hard earned reputation as the man of integrity the nation needs at this material time. He will become the enemy of the people if he becomes friends with looters.

    In the light of the foregoing, Saraki’s description of the budget as hopeless will be taken by those who mean well for the country as a positive development, knowing that he would go to any length to discredit the Buhari administration to feather his own political net. His inability to rein in the thugs that taunted the President during the session is nothing but a political suicide. It is a clear indication of leadership incompetence on the part of a man who had sought to rule the country only to come a distant third in the race for the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party. Many have described his failure to pick the presidential ticket of the PDP as an act of God. His supporters will now have to pray extra hard that humiliation will not be complete with the loss of Kwara State to the All Progressives Congress in the 2019 elections.

  • Of Obasanjo and a wind-operated mind

    Ours is a world of endless possibilities. The story is told of the Atlantis, a legendary city that was said to have sunk into the sea in one day thousands of years ago. Its inhabitants were said to be so sophisticated that they developed a mind-operated computer.

    The myth or reality of Atlantis, however, remains a matter of conjecture. Claims of its existence are traceable only to Timaeus and Critias, two books authored by the renowned Greek philosopher, Plato, around 360 BC. Plato claimed in the said books that the Atlantis story was told to the Greek sage Solon by a priest in Egypt. Solon, on returning to Greece, shared the story with a relation named Dropides. Dropides passed it down to his son Critias, who told it to his grandson also named Critias, who finally shared it with another Greek philosopher, Socrates, and some other people who were with him.

    In the circumstance, therefore, the truth about the Atlantis remains far-fetched. But not so far-fetched is a similar story told during the week by Mallam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, about former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s thoughts being determined by the direction of the wind, just like the candlelight. Speaking with reporters in Abuja a day after Obasanjo made a U-turn over his initial claim to being neutral in the campaign for the 2019 presidential election, Shehu said the Presidency had learnt not to take Obasanjo’s views seriously any longer, knowing that the slightest wind could make him change his mind on any issue.

    “Former President Obasanjo denounces one person today and supports that same person the next day,” he said. “When it pleases him, he brings God into the matter and uses that as his excuse for whatever position he has chosen. We have learnt not to take his utterances seriously anymore. We know that the slightest wind can make him change his mind again. After all, this is the same man who publicly tore his party registration card barely four years ago, and he now claims to be backing the same party.”

    While Shehu’s claims may sound outlandish, they seem eminently justified by the astonishing rapidity with which the former president has been changing his mind on issues of grave national concern in recent times. After telling the gathering at the 27th annual Owu National Convention in Iwo, Osun State last Saturday that he would not campaign for any particular candidate, Obasanjo was back in the news less than 24 hours later, kicking and cursing over media reports of his decision to remain neutral during the elections.

    Obasanjo had told the gathering in Iwo: “Another election is near, open your eyes and vote wisely. Vote only the party that won’t add to your suffering. The economy must return to a better state. Look at parties that have governed this country and choose that one that will return Nigeria’s economy to a better state. I am not campaigning for any party or candidate and I won’t do that. But I urge you to open your eyes and vote wisely. Only credible leadership can guarantee good governance and that is what the country needs now.”

    But the reports had barely hit the newsstands when Obasanjo’s media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, issued a statement denying his principal’s neutrality in the elections. “Only a fool will sit on the fence or be neutral when his or her country is being destroyed with incompetence, corruption, lack of focus, insecurity, nepotism, brazen impunity and denial of the obvious. Chief Obasanjo is no such fool nor is he so unwise,” the statement said, adding: “It is disingenuous, if not malicious, for anyone to suggest that Chief Obasanjo was being neutral when he chose not to use the Owu convention as a platform for political campaign but instead adopted a communal and familial approach in talking to members of his Owu family.”

    The Iwo incident is one in the long list of the Obasanjo’s actions upon which he now comes across as a chameleon. The Obasanjo who made a public show of tearing his PDP membership card in the build-up to the 2015 elections, saying that the party was determined to destroy the country with corruption, is now the one at the vanguard of the campaign for the party’s victory in the 2019 elections. The man who had seized every available opportunity to warn Nigerians not to allow his former deputy and PDP’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar access to any point in the radius of a kilometre to the Aso Rock presidential villa because he is incurably corrupt and incompetent, is also the one now rooting desperately for Atiku’s victory at the poll.

    More alarming is the fact that Obasanjo had previously taken his rejection of the PDP presidential candidate to celestial heights, saying that God would not forgive him if he forgave Atiku for his sins against the country. Based on the foregoing, Shehu would seem to have enough grounds for saying that the Presidency is not moved by Obasanjo’s outbursts on the 2019 elections, particularly with the realisation that the feeble nature of the former president’s mind can yet work in favour of Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) now that the harmattan winds are here.

  • Garlands for a tolerant statesman

    He will certainly come away with the plaque if there is such award as the most tolerant statesman of the year. In recent times, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu has endured a lot provocation from both the Peoples Democratic (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Were all things to be equal, Ekweremadu should at this moment be eyeing the seat of the Vice President. But that was not to be as the gesture was accorded former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, no thanks to Atiku’s decision to overlook Ekweremadu, the highest-ranking elected public office holder in the South East, in his choice of a running mate.

    A pacification visit Atiku and Senate President Bukola Saraki paid Ekweremadu ended up adding insult to his injury. The Deputy Senate President has paid his dues as a loyal member of the PDP, weathering the gale of defections that hit the party before and after the 2015 elections. By the time the dust of the elections settled, he had become the biggest political fish from the South East, serving a third term as the Deputy Senate President. It then fell to him to chart the roadmap for the party’s reinvention.

    Apart from acting as the chairman of the PDP Post-Election Review Panel that zoned the presidency to the North, Ekweremadu is credited with negotiating the return of many PDP bigwigs, including Atiku, Saraki, Sokoto State governor Aminu Tambuwal and some National Assembly members, who had defected to other parties in protest against the violation of the party’s zoning arrangement.

    So, when Atiku began to beam his searchlight on the South East geo-political zone for a running mate after his emergence at the PDP convention in Port Harcourt as the party’s presidential candidate, it was widely expected that Ekweremadu would be picked for the position. The expectation was reinforced by speculations before the party’s convention that Atiku had promised to pick Ekweremadu as his running mate if he became the presidential candidate of the party.

    Based on the foregoing, Ekweremadu was said to have worked assiduously for Atiku who eventually beat other aspirants, including Tambuwal and Saraki, by a wide margin to become the party’s flag bearer. It turned out, however, that a few days after the convention, Atiku announced former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, as his running mate without even consulting Ekweremadu before he made the announcement. And while Ekweremadu was smarting from this slight on his person, the news broke again that Atiku had constituted his campaign council without consulting Ekweremadu and without including his name on the list.

    If the first incident would be taken as an oversight, Ekweremadu and his supporters were at a loss on what to brand the second. Age-long wisdom, they reason, dictates that if Atiku would not eat palm oil for the sake of yam, he should consider eating yam for the sake of palm oil. If he would not appoint Ekweremadu as his running mate or member of his campaign council for fear that he might be advancing the Deputy Senate President’s political career, he should have appointed him for the sake of his own presidential ambition, knowing full well that Ekweremadu could be a good rallying point for the party in the South East.

    In a move that smacked of after-thought as the grumbling in Ekweremadu’s camp grew louder, Atiku, Saraki and the National Chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus, reportedly visited the Deputy Senate President in his Abuja residence last week to pacify him and his supporters. But the fence-mending mission turned out an insult added to Ekweremadu’s injury. In his bid to make Ekweremadu understand why he preferred Obi as his running mate, Atiku reportedly said that he opted for the latter because the former Anambra State governor does not have any corruption case hanging on his neck. As it would be expected, Atiku’s explanation has left political observers wondering if it implies that he did not pick Ekweremadu as his running mate because he is corrupt.

    Observers were also quick to observe that Ekweremadu might have had enough after the visit, going by the mild drama that played out when he presided over plenary at the Senate penultimate Wednesday and seemed to subtly endorse the APC campaign slogan, ‘Next Level’. As senators made to revert to plenary after considering some bills at the Committee of the Whole, Ekweremadu said: “Those in favour that the Senate do move to the next level say aye; those against say nay.”

    This happening a few days after the Deputy Senate President led some governors from the South East on courtesy visit to President Buhari is causing jitters in PDP’s camp.

  • Atiku goes to America

    It ordinarily would not qualify as news, but even a flight into space would not generate as much fuss as has the story that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is about to secure a visa to the United States of America. Indeed, the development, which remains yet in the realm of speculation, has polarised the country into two camps as the supporters of the former Vice President are rolling out the drums while his opponents are quaking and kicking. For the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), however, it is the fulfillment of a life time dream in same manner as his recent reconciliation with his erstwhile boss, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo.

    Former Ogun State governor and Director General of the Atiku Campaign Organisation, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, had set the tone for the controversy when he announced on Channels Television about one month ago that the hope of Atiku securing a US visa after years of fruitless search for same was on the rise. Officials of the United States, he said, had hinted that the former vice president could now secure a US visa if he applied for one. “I can also confirm to you that in the last few days, there have been signals from the American officials that he (Atiku) should indeed come forward so he can be granted visa. So between you and I, all the issues are perception,” Daniel had told his interlocutor.

    Atiku himself has at various times voiced his frustration over his inability to secure a visa to the US amid public mockery that he was banned from entering the country following allegations of corrupt practices levelled against him in the aftermath of a US congressional report that probed his numerous international financial dealings. Former US Congressman, William Jefferson, who was jailed in the US for his involvement in various bribery deals, was said to have told an American investor, Lori Mordy, that he would need to give Atiku, who was then the Vice President, the sum of $500,000 “as a motivating factor” to make sure that Mordy’s company and one other obtained contracts in Nigeria.

    Apparently following from the foregoing, the authorities of the US have been hesitant in granting Atiku entry into the country. But that seems about to change with recent hints of a visa in the offing for the presidential candidate. This, however, is not music in the ears of the ruling APC. The party is miffed that the turn of events is a product of alleged intense lobbying by former President Obasanjo who had previously described the conduct of Atiku while he was vice president as something that fell below the expectations of honest people.

    In a statement issued by its Acting National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, last month, the party said it had credible information that Obasanjo had started lobbying the US government to issue Atiku an entry visa.

    Nabena said. “We have come across credible reports that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has made moves to secure United States entry visa for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, whose candidacy he endorsed on Thursday. It is learnt that the former President, who during and after leaving office insisted on Atiku’s unsuitability to govern Nigeria based on his knowledge of the latter’s extensive corrupt practices while he served as Vice President, is lobbying US authorities to withdraw the ban reportedly placed on Atiku from entering the United States following a 2005 $500,000 bribery scandal that involved Atiku, his fourth wife, Jennifer and former United States Congressman, William Jefferson,” the statement said.

    Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, at a news conference in Abuja on Thursday, advised the US against granting visa to Atiku, saying that doing so at this point in time could give the impression that the US Government is favouring the PDP presidential candidate over others in the forthcoming 2019 poll.

    Mohammed said: “As you all will be aware, for more than 12 years, there has been a congressional bi-partisan investigation of corruption against certain individuals which had made it difficult for the former Vice President to secure a US visa. I am sure you will all recall the Jefferson case and what they called the cold $90,000 in the fridge. This is not the making of this administration, it has been ongoing. Our position is that if the former VP already has a US visa, we have no problem about it. What we warn the US Government against is not to give the impression that it is endorsing one particular candidate over the other. That is what is going to happen if, for instance, the former VP is granted a visa.”

    Be it as it may, Atiku securing a visa to the US, whether by crook or by hook, is a victory worth celebrating, considering the pall his inability to do so for more than a decade has cast on his integrity. But getting an American visa is just half victory. To come out whole, he must get Obasanjo to retract all that he has said about his (Atiku’s) integrity. The retractions must also be done in a manner that would convince right thinking Nigerians that they are not coming as an after-thought.

    All said, concerned Nigerians must be alarmed that a former vice president who is now seeking the chance to take charge of our collective destiny was linked to a scandal resulting in a travel ban from a country as strategic as the US.

  • Of Obasanjo, Okupe and their dissenting children

    The 2019 presidential election may still be more than two months away, but it has brought the peace of two prominent Nigerian families under severe threat. It is not the best of times for former Nigerian President, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, and his erstwhile spokesman, Chief Doyin Okupe, as both are on the verge of losing the loyalty of their children on account of the second term ambition of President Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    Obasanjo and Okupe are pitted against their sons, Olujonwo and Ditan, as they root for the success of former vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Their two children, on the other hand, have not only publicly declared their support for Buhari, they have vowed to join the sitting President’s campaign train and work very hard for his re-election.

    Never since the days of David and Absalom has the power and influence of a father over his son been so openly challenged or rebuffed. Yet it is a kind of humiliation the two fathers rarely deserve, considering that they have paid their dues not only as politicians but also as statesmen. Obasanjo, a major actor in the civil war that threatened to tear Nigeria apart between 1967 and 1970, a former head of state and former president, has already suffered enough embarrassment from family members after the stinker of a book his eldest wife wrote on him and the widely reported allegation by his eldest son that he slept with his wife and so was responsible for the collapse of his marriage!

    Okupe, a medical doctor by training, has found so much fulfillment in politics as a former presidential spokesman, former senior special assistant to the President and former governorship aspirant that he may now not be able to recognise a syringe. Losing the love and loyalty of his son to a presidential candidate outside his own political camp is the least he deserves after sacrificing his profession for governance. The tag of a bastard he brought upon himself in the run-up to the 2015 presidential election should not be compounded with the loss of his son’s attention.

    Apparently haunted by the wrongs he might have done his son in the past, Okupe was reported as saying that Ditan’s decision to canvass support for Buhari while he, the father, remained at the forefront of the campaign for Atiku’s presidency was a deliberate act aimed at taking his own pound of flesh. Happily, the young man has declared that he has a larger heart than his father imagines. Hence, his support for Buhari has nothing to do with whatever differences existed between him and his father but a decision that was based strictly on patriotic fervour.

    Ditan, who said he decided to pitch his tent with Buhari because he is the kind of leader Nigeria needs at this point, has since followed up his hand of fellowship with a public appeal to his father, asking him to channel his energy to drumming support for Buhari instead of Atiku. In a post he published on his Twitter handle, Ditan said: “I have said repeatedly that my decision was not based on revenge. I’m not even sure if my father is officially a PDP member or if he is actually on their campaign, but I will like to give my father @doyinokupe who I love, an open invitation to join the winning team now.”

    Both Obasanjo and Okupe should count themselves lucky that their sons have laid their hearts bare in the matter rather than act like the children of a polygamous headmaster of a primary school in one of the northern states who contested a councillorship election some years ago. At the polling unit where five of his wives and 16 of his children voted, the man recorded only eight votes.

    Burning with rage at the realization that some of his wives and children had betrayed him by voting for rival candidates, he summoned a meeting of all the family members, seeking to know who the traitors were. But when he asked the family members who voted for him to raise their hands, it was everybody that did!

    Unfortunately, the poor man had no way of verifying members of the family who voted for him or those who did not, because it was secret ballot. Disappointed and confused, he resorted to raining curses on his wives and children who did not vote for him during the exercise.

    But that notwithstanding, a major pillar of Yoruba culture, which borders on a child’s obedience to his father will be exposed to danger if the examples of Ditan and Olujonwo are allowed to catch on. That is why all the elders of Yorubaland must come together as a matter of urgency to address this clear and present threat to the very foundation of their culture. The two elder statesmen must be reconciled with their children either by asking the children to join their fathers’ camp in keeping with the dictates of tradition or asking the fathers to join their children’s camp for the sake of good thinking.

  • The Senate under scorn

    A house built with saliva would crumble under dew’s attack, says a timeless adage that appears to have caught up with the Senate as it battles to sustain its reputation against forces that seem determined to challenge it. At the plenary of the upper chamber on Wednesday, the lawmakers took turns to condemn the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, for spurning their invitation for the third time since April 26. The lawmakers had on April 25 given the IG a 24-hour notice to appear before them and answer questions on the spate of killings around the country and the dramatic arrest of Dino Melaye, the senator representing Kogi West.

    Rather than appear before the Senate, the IG sent his deputy in charge of operations to represent him, saying that he was on an official assignment with President Muhammadu Buhari, who was on a visit to Bauchi State. Not impressed with Idris’ arrangement that he should be represented at the chamber by his deputy, the lawmakers gave the IG another one week to appear at its plenary on May 2.

    But on May 2, the senators had stood down their Order 17 to enable the IG come into the chamber before they realised that he was nowhere near the National Assembly complex. After some deliberation, the lawmakers again resolved that the IG be given another one week to appear before them on May 9. It turned out that on the appointed day, the IG did not turn up and did not send a representative. As it would be expected, the senators were so livid that they declared him an enemy of democracy unfit for public office within and outside the country! But Force spokesman Jimoh Moshood, who responded to the resolution on Thursday, declared it a deliberate blackmail and witch-hunting with the “mischievous motive” of arm-twisting the IG to pervert justice.

    Senator Melaye had started the summons-spurning game by thrice turning down an invitation from the Kogi State Police Command for the senator to answer to charges of gunrunning, illegal possession of firearms, criminal conspiracy and kidnapping. As fate would have it, Melaye was later picked up in his Abuja home hours after he evaded arrest at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport. But it was only the beginning of an enthralling drama as the senator reportedly jumped off a police vehicle that was taking him from Abuja to Lokoja where he was due to face trial.

    As the story goes, some Melaye’s thugs had blocked the police vehicle to facilitate his escape from the minions of law, after which they took him to a private hospital in Abuja. He was, however, re-arrested from the private hospital. But rather than counsel Melaye against acts that smear the image of the Senate, they directed their fury at the IG and pleaded unflinching solidarity with Melaye!

    The lawmakers’ action was consistent with the way they have conducted themselves since they were inaugurated as the Eighth Senate. They have consistently cut the picture of a gang determined to protect their members. They waste precious time that should be channeled into urgent matters of national interest on mundane issues that border on personal ego of members. This was the point ACP Moshood tried to drive home on Thursday when he warned the lawmakers against harbouring criminal elements in its fold.

    It was apparent from inception that the Eighth Senate would find it difficult to pass the test of integrity, given the nocturnal manner its principal officers were elected. The elections were held while half of members were away for a consultative meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa. In the haste to conclude the election before those who went for the meeting would return, they struck strange accords across party lines, which placed many of the leadership positions in the hands of people who were either not qualified for the job or were not prepared for it.

    The foregoing is the basis for the contempt the Senate has suffered from public office holders and generality of Nigerians, the height of which was the recent invasion of its chamber by thugs to cart away the mace. The institution advertised as an edifice is now nothing more than a house of cards. Its occupants are majoring in minor issues and minoring in major ones, hence the scorn they suffer from perceptive members of the public. A house built on treachery will have its will tested by disdain and impudence.

  • Senate without Melaye

    Love or hate him, you cannot deny the huge talent of Dino Melaye, the rambunctious senator representing Kogi West in the National Assembly. Reputed for winning elections even when the odds are stacked against him, he has also proven that his talent extends to other spheres of human endeavour, including boxing, wrestling, music and acting.

    He came into national consciousness as a member of the House of Representatives in 2007 when he provoked a free for all on the floor of the House as a member of the Integrity Group demanding the resignation of the then Speaker, Patricia Etteh. In the process, he had his dress torn into shreds. He has since followed up the incident with others like a verbal attack on Senator Oluremi Tinubu and his celebrated face-off with Omoyele Sowore of the online news medium, saharareporters.

    Last week, he upped his game by treading on a terrain dreaded even by James Bond. Arrested by the police after weeks of manhunt, Melaye reportedly wriggled his huge frame through the window of a police vehicle that was conveying him from Abuja to Lokoja where he was billed to face trial for criminal conspiracy and illegal possession of firearms, diving unto the hard surface and injuring himself in the process. Seemingly embarrassed at the huge crowd the incident attracted, the police left the scene only to re-arrest him at a private hospital where he was reportedly taken by suspected thugs who were said to have blocked the police vehicle conveying the senator to Lokoja.

    Events thereafter assumed a fast tempo, culminating in the senator’s arraignment, first in Abuja for attempted suicide, and then in Lokoja for gunrunning, illegal possession of firearms, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping and other offences. The judge in Lokoja court where he was arraigned on a stretcher declined Melaye’s request for bail and ordered that he be kept in prison custody until June 11 when he would be brought back to court.

    Although the police have assured that the next time Melaye appears in court he will be as fit as a fiddle, it is hard to imagine the Senate without the man on whose pivot its engine rotates. Whether for his comic value or his skill at stirring up incidents when the upper chamber appears dull, the Senate without him will be nothing but drudgery. It is no surprise, therefore, that Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, a co-owner of Silverbird Galleria who knows the worth of the entertainment Melaye brings to the chamber, has been so concerned about the plight of the embattled senator. Melaye’s wellbeing is of so such importance to Murray-Bruce that he has taken it upon himself to do a minute by minute update on his condition in the hospital, at the police station and in the courts.

    In one of his numerous posts on the internet, the Common Sense Senator, as Murray-Bruce is fondly called, volunteered an explained why Melaye had to jump off a moving vehicle. He said the senator had to jump off a moving vehicle because he was asthmatic and the police kept firing tear gas at him. Rather than hail Murray-Bruce for his brilliant account, some mischievous people say it is devoid of commonsense. The police, they insist, would not be so stupid as to throw tear gas canisters in a vehicle they boarded with Dino.

    The interest Murray-Bruce has shown in Melaye’s matter is by no means an indication that he feels more concerned about him than does the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki; the man to whom Melaye has shown more commitment than his constituents. Indeed, his fawny adulation of the Senate President had been one of the reasons his constituents made moved for his recall from the Senate before they backed down at the critical stage of the exercise. The Senate President will surely be ruing life in the upper chamber without the man better known by many as his bodyguard. It is one of the ironies of life that Melaye, who has been escorting the Senate President in and out of court over his false asset declaration case, now has to shuttle between Abuja and Lokoja to attend to two different cases filed against him by the police.

    Anyone who does not share a gene with Boko Haram or killer herdsmen would be moved by the sight of Melaye on a stretcher. But one must be honest to admit that in shunning the invitation the police extended to him, his conduct as a senator fell short of the expectations of reasonable people. With all his loquacious braggadocio, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode would not smirk at an invitation from the police. Neither would Melaye’s boss and Senate President, Saraki, spun such a summons.

    Just two or three days ago, Shehu Sani, the senator representing Kaduna Central, posted a message on his Facebook wall, saying that he had just returned from honouring a police invitation in Kaduna State. That is a senator whose relationship with Governor Nasir El-Rufai is probably more strained than Melaye has with Governor Yaya Bello. But Sani, unlike Dino, would not latch on to it as an alibi to spun police invitation.

    • Continue online www.staging.thenationonlineng.net

  • IBB and the burden of his past

    At the height of his dissembling antics, Nigeria’s former head of state, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, described himself as the evil genius. The tag was nothing more than he deserved, considering all that he did to Nigeria after plotting his way to the nation’s number one seat. Not contented with being the Chief of Army Staff, he had led a palace coup that unseated the Buhari/Idiagbon regime, instituting one that adopted corruption as the directing principle of state affairs, ruined the naira and destroyed the economy all in pursuit of some selfish agenda. More remarkably, he annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election, foisting on the nation a political crisis from which it is yet to fully recover.

    It has been 25 years since Babangida performed the abominable and had to flee Aso Rock with his tale between his legs, but his past would not stop haunting him. Outside his coterie of friends and a few individuals who profited from the corrupt and profligate administration he headed, his genuine admirers appear few and far between. He cut a pathetic picture in an interview session on Channels Television penultimate Monday as he fielded questions from the anchor of a political programme, Roadmap 2019. In the said interview, Babangida, in apparently acknowledgement of his place in inglorious history, said he was not contemplating an autobiography because he feared that Nigerians would not touch it, even with a long pole. “People may not read it because it is coming from a dictator who cancelled June 12. That will kill the thing about the book,” he said.

    But he also wondered why Nigerians chose to condemn him for annulling the election widely regarded as the freest and fairest in the nation’s electoral history rather than commend him for it. Even Bashorun MKO Abiola, his friend and acclaimed winner of the election, he said, understood why it was annulled. “He (Abiola) knew my feeling, I knew his feeling about the country generally, because I did talk about Nigeria with the presumed winner of the truly democratically freest election. We even talked about it during the crisis itself,” he said.

    Unknown to him, Nigerians are not a people who would lionize a man for destroying a beautiful edifice, particularly one in which they invested their money and emotion. And while no one would begrudge whatever personal relationship existed between IBB and the winner of the election, the fact remains that their friendship does not in any way assuage the physical and psychological trauma the people suffered watching their hope of a new life go up in flames. Indeed, if Abiola’s words were anything to go by, the thought of friendship is only a figment of the imagination of the former head of state. “With a friend like Babangida, you don’t need an enemy,” Abiola once famously declared.

    Twenty-five years after shattering the dreams of 14 million voters, Babangida is talking about rationalising his action instead of apologising for it. “We tried to rationalise what we did but nobody is prepared to listen to us,” he said in a tone that smacked of insensitivity and utter disrespect for the electorate who defied the odd weather conditions of June 12, 1993 to cast their votes, not to talk of the souls of Abiola, his wife and thousands of other Nigerians who died fighting to reclaim the mandate.

    Babangida had plotted his way to power at a time there was absolutely no need for a change of government. The Buhari/Idiagbon regime was on the verge of ridding Nigeria of corruption and restoring discipline and sanity to the society. But IBB denied Nigerians the chance to see the best of Idiagbon, one of the bravest and brightest leaders Nigeria ever had.

     

    • Continued online www.staging.thenationonlineng.net